Hit Me with Your Best Shot
by Bea Ryan
Summary: Jason recently joined the rebels. His first mission is to turn Charlie into a warrior but desire keeps interrupting their training.


Jason grabbed her fist as it moved towards him and shoved backwards. Charlie's arm bent at the elbow.

"Really? That's the best you can do?" he asked.

"I don't understand," Charlie said.

"If you'd put any force behind it your muscles would have been tight as you swung forward. Your own arm should have turned into a battering ram against you. You should be on your ass right now."

Charlie tossed her hair out of her eyes. "So you're mad because you only stopped my punch instead of knocking me down? Nice."

"No, I'm mad because you're weak and you're going to die. You need to go into every fight ready to kill or die. You're not herding sheep anymore, farm girl."

"I never herded sheep. Besides," she protested. "This is just practice."

"EVERY fight. Do you really think you could hurt me if you had to?" he asked. "I don't."

"We're on the same side now," she said. In her heart she still had doubts, but the leader of the Allentown rebels had vouched for him, claiming she'd known him when he was a child and believed he wanted to do the right thing. "I don't need to hurt you."

Jason stalked toward her, pressing her back her against the wall with his chest, his forearms resting flat on either side of her head, penning her in as he thrust a knee between her thighs. "You always need to be ready to do what has to be done. You don't trust me, so how stupid are you to be alone in this building with me? You've got nowhere to go. I've backed you against a wall so now you can't build up any momentum in your swing. You don't have a weapon. What are you going to do?"

Charlie's heart pounded at his nearness and she could feel his beating out its own rapid rhythm as his chest pressed against hers. Sweat shone on his skin and she smelled the lingering hints of last night's fire on his clothes. She knew she should fight him, order him to back away, knee him in the groin, anything really, but she didn't want him to move. Trust wasn't required for desire.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear. "What are you going to do, Charlie?"

Her stomach clenched. There was a threat in that question. Was it intentional or a hint of who he truly was? She wanted him but not this way. She brought her knee up hard, doubling him over and dropping him to the ground.

"That," she said, hoping she sounded tougher than she felt.

"You only grazed me," he said, his breaths coming in gasps. "I'll be up in a second. You should be out the door by now."

"We aren't done training," she answered.

When he'd recovered he stood up and stared at her, examining her from head to toe and back again.

"Have you ever punched someone in the face?" he asked.

"Yeah. He deserved it. He was picking on Danny."

"What about someone who might or might not deserve it? Someone who was just standing there but you'd been told you needed to knock him out? Could you just walk up to someone and punch him?"

"Yeah, I guess," Charlie answered.

"Then do it. Punch me."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why should I?"

"Because you have orders," he answered. "You won't always know why, you won't always like them and sometimes they won't even make sense. You've been ordered to punch me in the face. Knock me out if you can. Do it."

"Who are you to give me orders?"

"I'm trying to help you. You need to be willing to attack and you're barely willing to defend yourself. Punch me or I'll scare you again."

"Jason..." she begged.

He didn't give her a chance to finish the thought. Charlie felt her feet leave the ground and the sickening swish of her body through the air followed by the hard slap of the sparring mat against her back. The air was forced out of her lungs by the impact and Jason quickly lay down on top of her, not giving her enough space to draw in a deep breath. Her hands were pinned uselessly above her head and he'd landed with his hips firmly between hers, preventing her from kneeing him again. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat.

He hid his face from her, nuzzling into the crook of her neck and breathing deeply through his nose. She felt his hot, slow breaths against her skin and shivered.

"You had your orders," he said. "You had your chance. Now you're helpless because you didn't act when you should have. You hesitated. You're weak. You're dead. If you're lucky you're only dead."

He rolled off of her and offered his hand to pull her up. She accepted reluctantly.

"You have to get past this, Charlie. You aren't safe if you aren't willing to hurt people. You should have killed me when you found out I was stalking you on the way to Chicago."

"Aren't you glad I didn't," she said with an ironic smile.

"Just hit me, Charlie. Show me that you can follow orders. Show me you can get over yourself and do what needs to be done."

Charlie shrugged. She felt emotionally and physically exhausted. "Fine. If this is what you want, I'll hit you." She drew back, carefully formed a fist with her thumb on the outside as she'd been taught to do, and swung. The punch connected with his cheek and she felt the sickening squish of his flesh as it was crushed between her fist and his teeth. She sigh, relieved that it was over and anxious to go back to her bunk.

"Dammit Charlie," Jason yelled. "Hit me like I'm worth hitting."

His tone caught her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That was weak. Pulling your punches like that says I'm not even worth the pain in your hand to hit me. I'm no threat. I'm nothing."

"Who told you that?"

"Militia training," he said. "Always fight to win. Is that all you think you need to win? "

"Who trained you? Was it Miles?"

"No. Miles never bothered with the kid soldiers. In the early days, before the militia was even called the militia, the kids just ran messages and ammo resupply. They only taught us to stay low and move fast. When I was sixteen Deb took over the unit and turned us into soldiers. I just want to do for you what she did for me."

"She made you punch her?"

"I don't want to talk about her anymore."

"But you want to do to me what she did to you?"

"Leave it."

"What did she do to you?"

"She taught me how to hit people and how to take a punch," he snarled. "Which one do you want to learn first?"

Charlie was tired of the threats and his sudden mood shift. Anger flashed within her. "So my choice here is either I hit you or you hit me?"

"You throw a good punch or I will. Yeah."

"You're twice my size with years of military training," she said remembering the bone jarring crack of Drexel's fist on her cheek. He'd been a twig compared to Jason. "You'll hurt me."

"Yeah," he said. "So don't make me. You need to learn to attack. If you need to be hurt to learn not to give away the upper hand then I'm going to hurt you. You might not like me, but you'll live longer."

He said it flatly, as if it were a simple statement of fact that no one could find unreasonable. This time Charlie really did fear for her safety. She had no doubt if he thought he had to punch her to keep her safe he would do it. She bit her lip and weighed her options.

She asked, "So do you want me to count to three or..."

"Just do it," he yelled. "Now. Hard. Decide. You or me?"

She didn't watch as her punch connected but she felt the hard bone of his cheek as slammed into her first and second knuckles. Jason staggered but remained standing.

"Good," he said. "Again."

"Again?"

"Am I still up? Still a threat? Again. Your opponent isn't down, much less dominated or dead. Again."

"This is sick."

He quoted his training again, the flat tone of memory replacing his commanding one. "This is war. Win or die. No points for second."

"Cute."

"I know a dozen more. Who's going down, Charlie? You or me?"

At the words "going down" Charlie's eyes flicked to his waistband. His shirt was untucked and his posture hunched, but she could still see the evidence of his arousal. He tracked her eyes and smiled, first licking and then biting his lips as her stare llingered. She smiled at him, relieved to see that whatever other undercurrents flowed here, he was still under her spell.

"How many more punches do you think it will take to knock me down?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered. "Three maybe."

As if sharing a secret he asked, "Do you want to play five punches?"

Her eyes left the bulge in his pants, prowling upward over his chest and shoulders before settling to meet his. "What's five punches?"

"If I go down in five punches, I go down. If I don't, then you do."

Charlie felt the need curling within her and imagined his full lips working a slow trail of kisses south of her navel. Would the calluses on his hands from the bow add a welcome texture to his touches or would they be hard edged and rough?

"Do the two punches I already threw count?" she asked.

"They do."

"I should have hit harder," she said.

"That's what I tried to tell you."

"I just have to knock you down, not out, right?"

"No streetfighting. Fists only and not below the belt."

Charlie nodded, agreeing to the rules. Her next punch knocked him back a step, but it left her shaking the pain out of her hand too. She threw her fourth and fifth as a left-right combo, charging on him and forcing him backwards against the wall. He leaned on it for support, neither fully up nor down, and stroked his jaw.

"So who wins?" she asked.

He pulled her hips hard against his, wrapping one arm around her waist and threading the other in her hair. "We both will."


End file.
